Abstract
Background: Surgeons are at high risk of contracting infectious viruses such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) through exposure to patients’ blood. The purpose of this study was to assess the surgeons’ awareness of contracting bloodborne viruses. Methods: A cross-sectional study with a questionnaire distributed to 241 surgeons at King Abdulaziz Medical City - Riyadh (KAMC-R) during the period June 2017 through January 2018. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data collected using Stata®, v14 (StataCorp LLC, College Station, Texas, USA). Categorical variables were analyzed using Pearson chi-square test. P-value of < 0.05 was considered significant.Results: A total of 241 surgeons answered the questionnaire, 179 (74.3%) surgeons were male and 62 (25.7%) were female. The mean age ± standard deviation (SD) of male surgeons was 35.8 ± 11.0 years while for females was 33.3 ± 9.1 years. The majority of our cohort were vaccinated for HBV (96% in males and 97% in females). Two-thirds of the study cohort did not know the conversion rate post-needlestick injury by HIV, HBV, and HCV. Two-thirds of the study cohort think there is a need for HIV screening before surgery. Mixed answers were received from the cohort when asked about their concern regarding contracting HIV infection from their patients; only one-third of the surgeons were extremely concerned. When asked about the risk of needlestick injury during treating patients positive for HBV, the majority of the surgeons said no. However, a significant difference between the female and male surgeons was found in which 12 of the 62 female surgeons answered yes (19.4%) compared to 11 of the 179 male surgeons (6.1%) (p = 0.002).Conclusion: The majority of our surgeons are vaccinated for HBV. However, female surgeons appear to be at higher risk of needlestick injury from HBV patients. This requires further investigation into the reasons for such high incidents. More education is needed about bloodborne viruses.
Highlights
Categories: Preventive Medicine, General Surgery, Infectious Disease Keywords: surgeon, needlestick injury, hiv, hbv, hcv Surgeons are at high risk of contracting infectious viruses, such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV), through exposure to patients’ blood [1,2,3,4,5]
A study was done in Najran in 2014 to evaluate seroprevalence of HBV and HCV among medical students and healthcare workers (HCWs) which indicated a seroprevalence of HBV of 1.7% and 8.7% for medical students and HCWs, respectively [14]
The majority of surgeons were vaccinated against HBV (96% in males and 97% in females) with no statistically significant difference between genders (p = 0.672) (Table 2)
Summary
Surgeons are at high risk of contracting infectious viruses, such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV), through exposure to patients’ blood [1,2,3,4,5]. The risk of infection after an occupational exposure for healthcare workers (HCWs) to HBV (unvaccinated), HCV, and HIV is between 6% to 30%, 1.8%, and 0.3%, respectively [3]. The cumulative lifetime risk increases dramatically with increased years of experience for surgeons and repetitive exposure to blood [911]. A national survey conducted in Italy demonstrated that the 30-year lifetime risk of getting an HBV, HCV, or HIV infection for surgeons was 42.7%, 34.8%, and 0.54%, respectively [13]. Surgeons are at high risk of contracting infectious viruses such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) through exposure to patients’ blood. The purpose of this study was to assess the surgeons’ awareness of contracting bloodborne viruses
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